


Stockholm Syndrome

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon, Drama, Future, M/M, Minor Character Death, Romance, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-16
Updated: 2004-06-16
Packaged: 2018-12-27 14:51:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12083337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Justin Taylor has spent five years and four boyfriends trying not to think about Brian Kinney.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

Justin Taylor has spent five years and four boyfriends trying not to think about Brian Kinney. 

At the very least, he doesn't want to think about Brian like that, like wet mouth and big hands and hard, pulsing cock, butter voice and whiskey flesh. He wants to think about Brian as a business partner and friend, not as the guy that fucked him so hard and loved him so quietly. Justin doesn't like to consider that maybe that stupid fucking break up was a mistake. Five fucking years have passed, and there's nothing he can do about it now.

They've fucked seventeen times in those five years. Laughing trysts in broken lifts, angry bouts in the backroom at Babylon. Twice at funerals, Brian's hands heavy and sad against Justin's flesh, holding one another through long nights of grim desperation. 

Daphne was first, and it was sudden, just some stupid jackass with a stupid knife, not meaning to cut so hard or so deep. Not meaning to leave her dying on some stupid street somewhere. The guy cried at the hearing, and Justin has never hated a person more in his entire life. At the funeral, wildflowers spilling out over the shining mahogany of the coffin, and Brian dragged Justin out and fucked him before he had a chance to fall apart. It was hot. Their skin stuck together and burned with the friction, but Justin was happy just to feel something, anything else. The minister's droning hypocrisy faded away to a dull roar when in competition with the sound of Brian's voice murmuring gently against his hair, Brian's fingers dragging across his stomach. The sex was hard, and it hurt, and later, Justin cried in the passenger seat of Brian's car because there was no way - no fucking way ever - that he'd hear Daphne's voice again. 

The next morning they got up and went to work. Discussed clients and jobs and pretended it never fucking happened. That's the way painful things go between them. 

The second was Joan Kinney, and the whole family stood behind Brian in silent support that he pretended not to need. Halfway through Reverend Buttfuck's solemn eulogy, Brian stood up. Michael made a move to follow, but Brian had already grabbed Justin's arm and pulled him from the chapel, fucking him silently and angrily in the restroom. 

"It's not a big deal," Brian said later, huffing on his joint. "She's always wanted to go to heaven. More than she ever wanted to be here."

They spent that night at Babylon, dancing and grinding and getting so fucking high. They slept at Justin's place, faces pressed close on the same pillow, Brian's hand caught in a fistful of Justin's hair. 

The next morning they got up and went to work. New clients and it never fucking happened, new clients and Justin barely saw Brian all day. 

There's no tension about the other times. They're like football buddies, drinking buddies, only with more balls and less beer. Afterwards, they joke around and fix one another's clothes, snort and laugh all the way to lunch or woody's or wherever the hell they were going when they got distracted. Sex has always been the easiest part of their lives. 

Other stuff is harder. Love stuff, mostly, and it was that ritual commitment monogamy fidelity bullshit that broke them up in the first place. Well, the second place, if you count that whole Ethan thing, and most days Justin doesn't, because that was never even remotely permanent. This is, though, and some days, the days when Justin allows himself to be angry, he's furious, just furious at Brian for every fucking thing ever. Pissed beyond all reason because that fucking cocksucker was too much of a coward to just let things go the way they should have. 

It was sudden. One minute Justin was sprawled on the couch watching Without a Trace, the next Brian was sitting in front of him telling him that they can't be together anymore, only he didn't use those words because Brian was still incapable of admitting that they were really together in the first place. Asshole. 

"What?" Justin had said, eyes wide and mouth open. He'd never been so stunned in his life, not even that first moment when he woke up and his mother told him that Chris Hobbs had smashed his head in with a baseball bat. 

"This is over, whatever it is. You want things that I don't want to give you." 

Brian was so firm about it. Eyes set and jaw grim, but still he looked like he was going to throw up from the ugliness of it. Justin had never been able to understand why Brian felt compelled to destroy the things he loved like that, but he knew then almost more than any other moment that Brian did love him. He'd known it forfuckingever and he knew it now, even though Brian was sitting there talking his heart into submission. 

Justin found out later that Brian had fucked Michael, drunk out of his mind and desperate in some dark fucking corner. He knows Brian. Fucking Michael is a symptom, not a cause, and there was no way in hell Brian would ever dump Justin's ass just to live in some sort of pseudo-hetero paradise with Mikey. 

"Shut up, Brian! I have everything I want."

"Everything you're ever going to get, you mean. Don't stay here out of some fucking false hope, because this is it, Taylor."

"Brian -- " 

"This is it, Justin." The voice changed, then, softer and deeper to match the velvet of Brian's fingers on Justin's chin. Brian kissed him tenderly on the forehead, and Justin's stomach flipped. "Suck it up. I'll see you at work on Monday." 

And then he was gone. Justin moved out - back to Mom's for a while, like some kind of kid - and spent the next few months alternately sad and angry and terrified, hating and loving and fearing for Brian. They worked together, joked together, fucked twice in the first six months, and at first Justin tried to pretend that nothing was different. Coming home to an empty apartment wasn't so bad, except for how much it sucked. Justin spent a lot of time with friends those first couple months, because he'd never lived alone before and the feeling was totally bizarre. At first. Then there was the comfort of solitude and time to think and relax and work on his artwork, and being alone was kind of cool. 

Of course, that was when Justin met Nathan. 

\--

"So what does he do?" 

They were in Brian's office, eating chinese and drinking beer, and Brian thought it was absolutely hilarious that Justin had a new prospective boyfriend. 

"He's an audio visual something something. Engineer, maybe."

"Good looking?" 

"Duh."

"Hung?"

Justin screwed up his nose and made a so-so gesture with his hand. "Medium, I guess. I'm bigger."

"Ass?"

"Great ass." 

Brian grunted and passed Justin the teriyaki chicken. "Better than yours?"

"That ass doesn't exist yet. Probably it never will."

"Would I fuck him?"

Justin rolled his eyes and snickered. "Brian, you'd fuck the janitor if you'd had enough E."

"Fuck you." 

"Mm, let me finish my chicken first."

"You're in a relationship now." Brian was smirking as the words rolled out of his mouth. "It would be ungentlemanly of me to fuck you."

"You'd probably do it anyway if we didn't have that meeting with Davis in ten minutes." Justin rolled up his napkin and threw it in the trash. "And I'm not in a relationship."

"Not yet." 

There was a hardness around Brian's mouth that Justin really didn't want to see, because it made him angry and sad and guilty at the same fucking time. Brian did this, it was Brian's choice, the choice he took gently from Justin's hands. Brian had no right to look so - 

So. So empty or whatever the fuck. So like there was nothing else ever. 

Brian did this. Justin was just trying to move on. --

The first time Brian met Nathan was at the office, amidst the flurry of afternoon activity that heralded the arrival of evening. Brian was wandering over to Justin's office with the proofs for the Extra Snap account when he came across him, this guy loitering in the lobby reading a magazine. Brian didn't really pay attention until Justin came out of his office and smiled warmly at the guy. Opened his arms to accept a hug and a kiss, trailing a hand down his arm and looking so close and familiar that Brian knew this just had to be Nathan.

The first time Brian met Nathan was at the office, amidst the flurry of afternoon activity that heralded the arrival of evening. Brian was wandering over to Justin's office with the proofs for the Extra Snap account when he came across him, this guy loitering in the lobby reading a magazine. Brian didn't really pay attention until Justin came out of his office and smiled warmly at the guy. Opened his arms to accept a hug and a kiss, trailing a hand down his arm and looking so close and familiar that Brian knew this just had to be Nathan.

Fucking Nathan. 

\--

It soon became clear to Justin that Brian was psychologically damaged in some way. Some way intense and deep-seated, like maybe he had multiple personalities or something. 

He was being polite to Nathan. 

Justin had known Brian for a hell of a long time now, and with the possible exception of Jennifer Taylor, He'd never seen Brian be polite to anyone. Not policemen or clients or little old fucking ladies. Brian didn't do polite. He said being polite was just another way of getting what you wanted, and sucking cock was easier. 

Seemed Nathan was the first guy in the history of homosexual Pittsburgh who Brian didn't want to fuck. 

One day, when Brian had offered Nathan a cup of coffee, a donut, and his usual seat at their booth at Gitano's, Justin made his decision. 

"Would you quit it?" he asked as they wandered towards their cars that night, arms full of layouts of ads for some stupid new doll. Justin wasn't quite sure why anyone would want the doll - it was fucking ugly and bigheaded and it freaked him out - but he'd had a lot of fun with the animation for the tv spots, so it probably didn't really matter. 

"Quit what?" Brian said, absently sliding his keys from the pocket of his trousers. 

"Being all weird with Nathan."

"I'm not weird with Nathan."

"Oh my god, you are so!" Justin exclaimed, dumping his armload on his passenger seat and turning back to face Brian. "You're so polite to him, it's bizarre. You'd think he was somebody's grandmother, the way you go on."

"Shut the fuck up, I do not." Brian was leaning against his own car, facing Justin. Not two feet away. He took out a cigarette and sparked it, hands cupped close to his face. 

"You do. It's weird. It makes me nervous."

"I thought it would make you happy that I like your boyfriend."

"You don't like him, though. It's so obvious!" Justin let his words settle into stillness around them. Brian's sheepish eyes and lips pursed around the dangling cigarette. "Were you really trying to make me happy?" 

Brian shrugged, grinding his half-finished cigarette beneath one perfect Prada boot. 

"That's sweet."

"Shut up. I'll see you tomorrow." 

Justin leaned forward and pressed his lips against Brian's jaw bone. "Thanks." Breathed out against Brian's flesh, because there was nothing that felt more like home than standing here like this. He pulled back and moved around the car, pausing in the open door. "You don't have to be polite to him, you know. Be however you want."

"Later."

Justin smiled, shaky smile, shaky lips, and when he got into the car he was sure his hands would be shaking. "Later."

That night, he dreamed of blue lights and the taste of vanilla icecream. 

\-- 

Brian stopped being polite to Nathan after that. No polite small talk or gracious compliments, no more offers of coffee or tea or snifters of brandy. Instead it became dirty jokes and short, grumpy criticism. Brian would walk into the diner in the morning, see Nathan with his eggs and coffee, and say, "Move the fuck over, I need to talk to Sunshine." 

In short, Brian treated Nathan the same way he treated everybody else.

Brian had started calling Justin Sunshine in that teasing way again, voice lifting and lilting over the words. Sun-shine. Sunsh-ine. Sunshine. He'd stopped all that years ago, around the same time Justin stopped being a stupid kid and started being a man. 

Justin didn't worry about the resurrection of the half-forgotten nickname. For the most part, he barely noticed it, apart from the slight kick in his heart and the intense desire to fuck Brian's brains out. That impulse was pretty much consistent with all the rest of Justin's feelings, so he managed to ignore it. Most of the time. 

\--

Justin and Nathan had been a couple for close to four months when it happened, just the same as it always did. The slow burn of the day, the way their gazes would linger that moment too long, the stretch of Brian's arm across Justin's shoulder as they stood at the bar at Woody's. The way Justin's name slipping from between Brian's lips seemed so much louder than anything else. The way Brian touched his arm and called him Sunshine. 

They fucked at Justin's place. Up against the inside of the front door, because they couldn't get that little bit further to the couch. Voices rising and falling beneath the weight of their heavy breath, Brian's nails digging into Justin's hips, and holy fucking hell, they'd both missed ... everything. 

Brian's lips resting behind Justin's ear, his hand in Justin's soft, sweaty hair. Justin's heart pounding and pounding. Groaning Brian's name, and then on the other side of the door - 

"Justin?"

Nathan. Fuck. 

Justin froze, Brian still against his back, and that was pretty much the last moment of Justin's relationship with Nathan. 

Some - Brian - would say, good fucking riddance.


	2. Stockholm Syndrome

Jack was younger than Justin but seemed older, the guy kind of guy that lived through his parents divorce and vowed never to end up like his father, 65 and still switching girlfriends every other month, or his mother, 55 and lonely, refusing to take her life into her own hands. 

"They're like characters out of some bad telemovie," Jack told Justin one day, lying on his back on Justin's floor, joint hanging useless from between his lips. "Or a british sitcom or something. It's pathetic."

Jack was determined to be in control of his own life. He lived in a nice apartment and had a nice car and a healthy stock portfolio, the beginnings of a savings account for the house he wanted to own one day. Justin had those things too, and a partnership in a successful agency to boot, but he still went to Debbie's place for dinner every Sunday and called his mother if the dishwasher wasn't working. Both women looked after him the last time he had the flu. Brian had to remind him to pay his car insurance - every. single. year. 

Justin was an adult, but a lot of the time he acted like a kid. Jack was a kid, really, but most of the time behaved like an adult. 

He was 22, with dark eyes and light hair, and for all his sophistication he still fucked like a teenager - or like Brian, depending on how you looked at it. 

From the start, they agreed that it wouldn't be a relationship in the traditional sense. They could fuck anyone, anywhere, anytime. They could go on dates and hang out with random people - though for the most part, with the notable exception of Justin's continued interaction with Brian, neither of them did. For Justin, their relationship was ideal, offering the perfect balance between sex and sentiment. 

They were an affectionate couple, holding hands and cuddling, buying stupid little presents and making stupid little calls. For all Jack's seeming similarity to Brian, he believed in love with a fierce determination. For him, the wide open doors were a precaution against love turning bitter and cold. He was determined that love be preserved, held sacred until the final moment when someone walked out the door. 

The idea was love without obligation. Separation without malice. 

Brian liked Jack without wanting to. He'd admitted as much to Justin once, when they lay sweaty and exhausted on Brian's bathroom floor. They'd fucked for the first time in months, mouths open to one another's skin, hands clutching, Justin's throat marked and slashed with bite marks and bruises. He bruised much more easily than Brian, who by morning would look as perfect and untouched as a cherub. Bastard. 

"Ow," Justin exhaled, shifting against the tile. 

Brian didn't move, his head resting heavy against Justin's arm. "Huh?"

Justin winced. "Back. Butt. Bruises. Ow."

"Worth it," Brian purred, rolling onto his side to stare down at Justin. "Although next time, the bed would probably be nice."

"We were in the bed. You ran out of condoms."

"You didn't have to follow me. I promise I would have come back."

"Mm. You were taking too long." Justin's fingers traced over the familiar path of Brian's collarbone, the line of his neck. "Couldn't wait."

Brian collapsed, face in the crook of Justin's neck. Justin's hands sifted through Brian's hair, creating paths and valleys along his scalp. 

"We haven't done that in a while," Justin said finally. "I don't remember why."

Brian snorted, the sound muffled against Justin's skin. "Because you have a cute little boyfriend?"

"Jack wouldn't care." Justin laughed, ignoring Brian's exclamation of disbelief. "He's got his shit together. He doesn't believe that love should be a prison, or something. Since when do you care what Jack thinks?"

Brian's shrug rubbed against Justin's flesh, pressed against a fresh bruise on his shoulder. "Jack's okay."

"Okay?" Justin repeated, shocked. "You're serious?"

"He's not a bad guy."

"Oh my god."

"What?"

"You LIKE my BOYFRIEND!" Justin cried.

"That's a good thing, asshole," Brian replied shortly. 

"You don't love me anymore!" He was only half-joking. 

Brian reeled back in surprise. "What the FUCK, Justin?!" He rolled away, settling on his back almost a foot away from Justin. Justin's anxiety rolled off him in waves. "Look, just because I think Jack's okay doesn't mean anything has changed. Jesus."

Justin's thumping heart and Brian's sudden headache. Justin's hand stretched across the floor to twine around Brian's, and his soft voice wobbled across the room. "Sorry."

Brian's answer was gruff, but he squeezed Justin's hand and didn't let go. "Whatever."

They lay in silence, both very aware of what Brian hadn't said. 

\--

Justin and Jack were together for a year. It was a good year, too, easy. Easy wasn't something with which Justin had that much experience, so sometimes he got paranoid, like maybe Jack was just stringing him along until he turned into some kind of psycho and locked Justin up in a basement for 50 years. Like maybe in the basement there'd be women's magazines and a wig, and Justin would have to take the lotion from the bucket...

Most of the time, he recognised the crazy in that whole scenario. 

The whole relationship was easy, up to and including the breakup. A few days beforehand, Justin had been talking to Daphne about Jack, and he'd just felt this immense sense of their time being almost up. Like maybe he'd had his share of Jack and Jack had had his share of him, and they'd move on - or back - to other people, other lives. 

The thought didn't bother Justin. It didn't make him sad. He didn't feel as if breaking up would mean he'd never see Jack or call Jack or laugh at Jack's jokes. He didn't feel as if breaking up was a death. It was just life, the way Justin had always thought it should be. 

\-- 

When it came, they were dancing at Babylon, Brian with some young guy in the periphery of Justin's vision, Jack looking spectactular in black jeans and a black t-shirt, the lights of Babylon and the E in Justin's blood making him warm and dizzy. 

"That guy's cute," Jack said, nodding towards a guy dancing with a drag queen towards the edge of the floor. Justin didn't particularly agree, but he just laughed and hugged Jack tighter, kissed his cheek, felt the familiar clasp of the silver chain Jack wore. 

"I've had fun with you," Justin said out of nowhere. "Even though you act like you're a hundred years old."

"You've been kind of amusing yourself, old man." Jack shoved him on the shoulder, the smoothed his hand up Justin's neck and into his hair. "You're not pissed that I'm leaving?"

"Fuck that," Justin snorted. "I'm pretty fucking proud of you, though. Fancy new job."

"Besides, it'll leave you more time to fuck Briiiiiiiian," Jack snickered. "He's watching you, you know. Like always."

"You're desperate to be my pimp, aren't you?" Their faces were so close together, at this point. Dancefloor of Babylon, they had to be. "I thought this new job paid well."

Jack shrugged. "I just want you to be happy." 

"Believe it or not, that's what Brian wants, too." Justin laced their fingers together. Squeezed Jack tight, because even though the breakup wasn't sad, the fact that he wouldn't be able to hug Jack whenever anymore was. "He's just an idiot about it."

"He'll come around."

"Thanks, Jack." 

They kissed, warm as the swirling lights of Babylon and the E in Justin's blood.

\--

Brian came over to hang out a couple of days after Jack left for Boston. With him he brought Justin's favourite pizza and a generous bag of weed, and they sat barefoot on Justin's floor watching old movies and sharing joint after joint. Justin was one of the few people who knew of Brian's obsession with classic film, so they watched The Third Man together, Justin pretending not to notice Brian reciting the lines underneath his breath, and eventually falling asleep with his head on Brian's shoulder. 

They ended up together on the living room floor, Justin's body pressed against the length of Brian's, Brian's nose buried in Justin's hair. They didn't fuck, just shared moist kisses that tasted of pot and pepperoni. Justin drifted off to sleep with the feel of Brian's hand stroking his back through his thin t-shirt, Brian's nails scratching concentric circles around his belly button. 

\--

Brian was in Atlanta on business for a week afterwards, and Justin felt his absence much more than Jack's. He took to eating lunch with a couple of low ranking members of the art department - they were closer in age to him, and had brilliant ideas about the nature of art in modern society - and working through any other breaks, too bored without Brian to do anything but shuffle papers and doodle cartoons. 

When they'd started the business, neither had really intended for Justin to become partner. Brian needed an artist, though, and had no money to pay Justin for his extensive, intensive work. Being Brian, he refused to take Justin's help for free, and instead they reached a compromise: they would be partners in this new venture, already named - by Justin - Kinnetic. 

It surprised them both that the whole thing worked so well. They worked well. Brian had never really had someone like Justin to bounce ideas off, had never had anyone around who understood what he was thinking almost before he thought it. They worked long hours together without getting bored, fucked in the office at whim, and Justin found that learning from Brian he got a better education than he would have at any other school. 

They just worked. Like they always did. Their worklife was brilliant, their lovelife was brilliant, and Justin knew, just knew that probably that was what had freaked Brian out in the first place. 

That's when Brian fucked Michael. Justin found out from Michael's guilty face and Emmett's nervous laugh, the hard line of Brian's mouth and Michael's eventual almost tearful apology. 

They'd already broken up at this point, and it wasn't Michael's fucking fault, but fuck that apology made Justin angry. Fuck fuck fucking fucker, because he was finally at a place in his relationship with Brian where he could forgive Michael, and he was so proud of that... and yet Brian had shattered them, so he had no time to bask in this newfound maturity. He wanted to feel like a grown up, but instead he just felt like a jilted, angry child. 

But he continued to work with Brian, and they continued to be friends. 

\-- 

Justin's office was Brian's first stop on his return from Atlanta, and he sauntered in and fell into the chair opposite Justin, smiling that calm Brian smile that Justin hadn't seen in a week. 

"Hey," Justin said, kicking the side of Brian's foot under the desk. 

"Hey," Brian responded, and Justin felt the nudging of Brian's toe along his ankle. "Johnson signed up."

"Fantastic. You have to go out there again?"

"Eventually. Only briefly, though. Any major crises here?" Brian picked up a file from Justin's desk and opened it, rummaging through the contents. 

"Nah. Alec's wife is pregnant." Justin rolled his eyes at Brian's blank gaze, then elaborated. "Sandy hair, works in accounting? Has that tattoo on his wrist that he doesn't want anyone to see." 

"Oh. That guy." Brian kept his gaze level on Justin's face, and said, "I meant, any crises with you."

Once, Justin would have felt a catch in his heart that Brian might notice, or care. Now, he wasn't in the least surprised. "I'm fine."

"I just figured, with Jack leaving, and all..." 

"I'm fine. Honestly. Jack and me, were... you know. Fun. And we're still friends. It's all fine." Justin paused, unsure if he should continue. "I did sort of miss you, though."

Brian's lips curled upwards, his eyes going soft and brown, that little boy gaze of his that only surfaced when he didn't keep himself in check. "Yeah," he said. "I figured you might."

"This place is pretty boring without you."

"Try being stuck in fucking Atlanta for a week."

"You so missed me too."

"You so missed me too," Brian mimicked. "What are you, twelve?"

"Maybe. Did you bring me a present?"

Brian sighed, "Just a shitload of fucking paperwork, Sunshine." He leaned his head to the side, grinned at Justin. "And maybe a snowglobe."

It was on Justin's doorstep when he got home that night. He called Brian, and they had phonesex for the first time in years.


	3. Stockholm Syndrome

For reasons unclear to all but himself, Brian took an immediate and intense dislike to Pete. He didn't like the guy's clothes or his job or the way he treated Justin. He didn't like his voice or his car or his taste in music. He was frustrated by the family's easy acceptance of the fucker and spent much of his time trying to convince Justin that dumping "that fucking Peter" was really the only humane option. 

Several times a day they had a conversation that went much like this: 

"Get rid of that guy."

"No." 

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"Because I like him?"

"He's a fucking moron."

"He's not a moron. He's a lawyer."

"Being a lawyer doesn't make him smart. I've never heard him talk about winning a case."

"That's because he doesn't boast about it. He's modest. He wins like all the time."

"What the fuck does that matter? He thinks talking about the renaissance and fucking post modernism makes him sound smart. It's boring. He's boring."

"God, Brian. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were jealous."

"Fuck. You. I liked Jack."

"I remember. You're so weird."

"Jack didn't want to turn you into some kind of little woman."

"Pete does *not* want me to be a little woman."

"Then what's with all the trips to the fucking country with the family?"

"We're a couple. That's what couples do."

"We never did that shit."

"We were never a couple, according to you."

"He's fattening you for the slaughter."

"Shit, don't be such a queen."

"Just watch. Next thing it'll be china patterns and bridal registry."

"Whatever. Would you pass me those proofs?"

"He's a shit. Dump him."

"No. Don't you have work to do?"

\--

In general, Justin found the whole thing enormously entertaining, as long as he kept Pete out of Brian's way. Pete really was a sweet guy, and Justin knew that was probably why Brian hated him so much. With the exception of Mikey, who was for some reason exempt from Brian's Guide to Better Living, Brian despised sweet people. He felt that there was something inherently dishonest about being nice all the time. Justin felt that there was something inherently dishonest about pretending to be an asshole when you're clearly not, but he'd never voiced that opinion to Brian. Or, he had, but not in years. Not since he was sure that Brian would shut him up by kissing him, rather than trying to fire him or tossing him out of the office. 

Things these days weren't as easy as they once where. 

\--

Pete asked Justin to move in with him three weeks later, and Brian was the first person that Justin told. Sitting in the office late at night, bottles of beer and half eaten sandwiches between them. Sometimes Justin felt that they subconsciously invented ugent business matters just so they could spend a legitimate evening together. Sometimes they didn't even bother. 

When Justin told him, Brian pretended not to choke on his beer. 

"With that boring fuck? Are you fucking insane?"

Justin shrugged, settling back against the leather of his chair. "It could be okay."

"Or it could be fucking terrible."

"Can you try and be objective? Don't think about the fact that you hate him. Think about what's best for me."

Brian looked affronted, leaning forward with his elbows on the desk and looking seriously at Justin's face. "I am. It could be awful."

"He's a good guy."

"You barely know him."

"We've been together for like three months."

"Yeah, like that means anything."

"It doesn't?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"There's never been any shit with him. Just the two of you in his little pink plasticine world."

"So you're saying because things have always been good between us, that means I shouldn't move in with him." Justin paused, but didn't seem as if he was really considering Brian's words. "You're so dysfunctional."

"Not shit from him. Shit with him." Brian took a lazy swig of his beer, using the neck to jab and point at Justin. "You don't know if he's got your back."

They stared at one another across the table, Justin aware that if he wanted to he could climb over that table and into Brian's lap, and from there into his mouth and into something akin to fucking everything. "I don't need him to have my back," Justin said finally. "I've got you."

Brian smiled bitterly over at him. "Don't count your fucking chickens, sunshine."

\--

Daphne died two days later. 

It wasn't that Pete didn't want to be with Justin. He did, and every moment was spent sidestepping Pete's questions and phonecalls and turning instead to the silence of the loft and the warmth of the endless cups of coffee Brian slid into his hands. Sliding into the warmth of their sheets and the hot tears that left tracks down his face. 

It was Brian that Justin called that first fucking night when Daph's mother called him, Brian that Justin called furious and shaking at Daphne's childhood home because they were insisting she have a catholic fucking church fucking funeral, despite Daphne's continued insistence that she was an atheist. Despite every fucking argument Justin made. It was Brian that took Justin and fucked him when the whole thing became too much. All fucking Brian. 

It wasn't that Pete didn't want to be there. It was that Justin couldn't fucking let him. 

\-- 

"What is this, Justin?" Pete asked one day, a few months after the funeral. "What's going on with you?"

"Hm?" Justin barely looked up from his papers.

"Justin. Pay attention."

"What?" Looked up, finally. Took in Pete's serious face, the tense line of his body. "What's up?"

Pete sat in the chair opposite Justin's desk, elbows resting on his knees. Justin noted absently the way his hands were clasped loosely, as in the moment before prayer. 

"I'm just worried. You... never talk about her. Daphne."

"I talk."

"Not to me."

And maybe that there was the problem Pete was really trying to talk about, because Justin certainly did talk about Daphne. Quiet phone calls in the morning or the middle of the night. Talking to Debbie, or Lindsay, or Mikey. Talking to everyone but Pete. 

Mostly, talking to Brian. Sitting on the floor with Brian, sides pressed together and empty liquor bottles scattered at their feet. Cold sweat three am phone calls, woken from dreams where Justin can see the knife and smell the blood, the leather of Daph's coat, the piss-soaked pavement she died on.

Brian takes the calls without anger or question, talks Justin down. Comes over, sometimes. Agrees to meet him for breakfast or brunch. Offers a ride to the office. Offers whatever he can, whenever he can, however he can, short of a verbal declaration of eternal love. Justin has stopped listening for that. Instead, he sees, in the intensity of Brian's eyes, the caution of Brian's hands, the insistence with which Brian stays by his side. 

And yet, Justin stays with Pete. Sort of. Most of the time. 

If Pete knows that Justin has fucked Brian since the inception of their relationship, he doesn't say anything, but then, most things about Justin's relationship with Brian go unsaid, so what would be new there?

"Pete, I can only give you what you have?"

"And what do you have?"

"A fucking broken heart, and I need my friends. And all you have to do is wait, okay?"

Pete stood over Justin, looked tired and sad. He reminded Justin of one of Mikey's superheroes. Superheroes never smile. 

"I won't wait forever, Justin."

He didn't leave, though. He just sat down and turned on the TV. 

\-- 

If Justin knew Brian - and he did, he really did - there would eventually be some kind of retribution for the way Justin had forced him to be gentle and kind in the months following Daphne's death. When it came, Justin was just grateful it wasn't as bad as it could have been. 

They were at Woody's, shooting pool and cracking jokes, and Brian's eyes had been wandering all night, but never too far away from Justin's face. Never far enough that he didn't know exactly what Justin was thinking or feeling or doing. If Justin blinked, Brian knew about it. 

This was nothing new. This was how it had been for months, with Brian constantly on edge, constantly waiting for Justin to have a breakdown or something. Constantly waiting to be the one to pick him up. 

"You can relax, you know," Justin groaned when Brian let the fourth hot guy walk out the door. "I'm fine. You can go fuck some guy."

"That's been the plan all along," Brian denied, lining up his shot. "I've fucked everyone here." 

"Uh huh."

"I have," Brian insisted, eyes following the slim line of a guy that just walked through the doors. "Except for him."

Justin turned to look, and felt a heaviness sinking in his stomach. Something like sadness and fury. Anxiety like nothing he'd known in a long time. 

And yet still, he was not surprised. 

\--

They spent the next few days in silence, Justin choosing to eat lunch with the team in the art department rather than Brian, choosing to send his assistant rather than deliver messages personally. He didn’t go to the diner, or Woody’s, or lunch at the Lesbians’. He didn’t answer his phone and he didn’t open his emails. He lived the cliché life of a rejected sitcom character. 

He was so fucking angry he could feel it growing like cement in his skin. Pissed off and abused and wondering who the fuck Brian Kinney thought he was. 

Justin would have been less angry if he’d fucked Pete.

\--

Tom was a nice guy, really. He was pretty, too, in a sort of ordinary way. Green eyes. Nice smile. Justin had always thought he had a good sense of humour. 

He’d worked for them for four months. Assistant to one of the more successful executives, a woman named Ellie that Justin had been secretly terrified of forever. As usual, Brian was the only one he told of his wild and irrational fear, which was probably the biggest fucking mistake he’d ever made, apart from Ethan and Chris Hobbs and not going out with Daphne that night. A week after Justin confessed his fear to Brian, they somehow managed to end up having coffee with Ellie at a Starbucks down the street. Brian made frequent references to fear in business, and Justin was about ready to kill him. 

The urge to kill Brian had become a common experience. 

\--

”Don’t talk to me,” Justin said when Brian walked into his office, holding two bottles of beer and what looked like a box of Cuban cigars. 

Brian popped the cap off one beer and handed it to Justin as he came around the desk. He leaned against the edge, close to Justin’s legs. Close to Justin in general, which was too annoying to even contemplate. Justin huffed at him, taking a swig of beer just to distract himself from his own irritation. 

”Quit being such a princess,” Brian drawled, nudging Justin’s thigh with his knee. “I don’t even know why you’re pissed at me.”

”Yes, you do.” Justin crossed his arm and turned his chair away, feeling like a sulking twelve year old. 

”Okay, I do,” Brian admitted, “but I don’t really get why you’re being such a pussy about it. It was just a fuck.”

”Bullshit,” Justin spat. “You knew I’d be upset, and that’s exactly why you did it, you crazy fuck.”

Brian rolled his eyes, opening his mouth to reply, but Justin cut him off. “You could have _screwed_ us, Brian, you know that, right? Just to teach me some fucked up Brian Kinney life lesson, you put the entire fucking company at risk.” Justin stared at him, feeling the ebb and tide of fury in his stomach, his head. “Look, I love you. You know that – but I’m really fucking pissed off at you right now, so just – leave me alone, would you?”

They stared at one another until Brian moved away, leaving his beer on Justin’s desk. For the next few days, it was as if they didn’t even speak the same language. 

\--

”Brian’s freaking out ‘cause you’re mad at him or something,” Michael confided when they got together to finalise the changes in the new edition of _Rage_.   
”He told you that?” Justin was surprised. Most times, Brian tried not to involve Michael in his arguments with Justin at all. Something about making life easier for everyone. 

”Nah, of course not!” Michael scoffed, his pen moving fast over the release orders he was signing. “He’s just been at my place for dinner like, every night this week. Usually I’m lucky if he comes like once a fortnight. Plus he’s in a totally shitty mood. All quiet and cranky, you know. Bitching me out because I used frozen corn in the stirfry, or some shit. I figured you had to be pissed at him.”

”Sorry,” Justin said quietly, shoving his papers to the left. “He’s just infuriating.”

”What this time?”

Justin shrugged, taking a pencil and scratching out figures on a piece of blank paper. “He’s been really amazing since Daph died. I was already waiting for the backlash.”

”You know when Brian starts being nice to you that it’s time to be afraid. Like Jaws.” 

Justin chuckled. “Just when I thought it was safe to get back in the water…” 

”Your boyfriend turned into a total asshole?”

”He’s not my boyfriend,” Justin objected, but they were both laughing. “I have a Pete. Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

”Oh, he’s queening out too. I think he’ll dump my ass if I don’t get my head together soon.”

”Brian’ll be glad to see him go,” Michael said knowingly, raising his eyebrow at Justin’s scowl. 

”Brian’s being such an ass that I’m thinking of moving in with Pete just to spite him. Except Pete would probably try to stop me from ever talking to Brian again, and that’s totally fucked. Jesus, all the men in my life are so neurotic – “

”Because you’re so stable and well-adjusted,” Michael drawled. 

“ - I think in my next incarnation I want to be a lesbian.”

Michael screwed up his nose in distaste. “Yeah, but think of all the pussy you’d have to eat. Gross.” 

Justin ignored Michael, beginning to draw concentric circles on his page. He picked up a pink texta and drew a squiggly line around the spiral. He didn’t want to think about Brian, or Pete. He didn’t want to think about whether or not Michael would take Brian’s side automatically, as he still occasionally did. He didn’t want to be Justin Taylor, and he didn’t want his best friend to be dead. 

He did want things to be normal again. Just fucking normal. He wanted to go to Woody’s with Brian and have brunch with Daph. He wanted to end up filling in at the Diner dressed in his work pants and Armani blazer, just because they were always understaffed and he knew Deb couldn’t do it on her own. He wanted to watch a fucking movie with Pete and not have to look at him and see that sadness, that fucking ache in his eyes. He wanted to be able to love Pete, but he couldn’t, because he was so tired and loving Brian took up so much of his energy…

He just wanted to catch a fucking break. 

”So Brian freaks out about how much he loves you, and then what? Fucks some random guy?” Michael, at some point, has retrieved a few cans of Coke from the bar fridge beneath the counter. 

”God, at this point, a random stranger would be a blessing. I can deal with that. It’s this self destructive shit I hate. He fucked an employee. If Tom decided he wanted to screw us…” 

”Has he got any reason to?” 

”Fuck if I know!” Justin cried. “He’s only been working with us four fucking months. Long enough to get a crush on Brian like every other fag in history.” 

“Somebody’s jea-lous.” Michael sang, smiling into Justin’s glare. 

”Our business is important to me,” Justin went on, ignoring him. “I don’t like watching Brian fuck with it.” 

They talked around the issue for hours, but Justin went home at 1am feeling just as pissed off as he before. 

\--

Justin saw Tom in the staff lounge the next day. He smiled weakly, even as he felt his heart throbbing and slamming against his ribs. He left without saying a word because he was afraid he would start screaming. 

\--

_Daphne’s face and rotting skin, blood dripping thick from her wounds, her eyes empty and her lips blue and her hands reaching out and asking Justin for things he knew he couldn’t deliver._  
\-- 

The nightmare came like a disease, spreading ice throughout Justin’s body and making him shudder and cry. He’d had nightmares for the better part of a decade, but these were worse, so much fucking worse, because he woke up and Daphne was actually dead and he was actually helpless and nothing he could ever do would bring her back. 

He took a tranquilizer and then sat shaking on the bed, dialing Brian’s number, closing his eyes with the comfort of Brian’s voice. 

Brian spoke to Justin on his cell as he drove over, talking to Justin about Gus’ school play and Debbie’s next PFLAG rally, Jennifer’s new haircut, a guy Brian fucked recently with a tattoo of Barney Rubble on his cock. 

Brian let himself in quietly when he arrived, stripped Justin of his t-shirt and boxers. They crawled under the covers together, Justin pushing his face against Brian’s warm skin, Brian’s arms holding him so fucking tight in the darkness. Justin might even have cried, might even have admitted he was crying, and Brian might have hushed him and told him everything was okay, alright, okay, and if it wasn’t Brian would kick the shit out of God himself. Brian might have murmured something very close to love against Justin’s skin, and then they slept. 

Brian slept in Justin’s bed for the next two weeks. 

\--

Justin never really broke up with Pete. At some point, they just stopped seeing each other. Brian was the first to notice, but failed to let Justin in on the secret. One day, Brian was sitting his desk playing Tetris on Justin’s GameBoy when it finally dawned on Justin that he hadn’t seen Pete in nearly four months. 

”You know, I think Pete and I might have broken up,” Justin said, sounding surprised. 

”Really?” Brian responded. “I hadn’t noticed.” 

That night, they sat around together watching porn and eating Chinese, and Justin fell asleep on Brian’s couch.


End file.
